Thief: The Gates of Knowledge
by Frostfyre7
Summary: Marked by the events of the Hag's Night, Garrett wants answers. But the Keepers have vanished-and something wicked seems to have stepped in to fill the gap...
1. Chapter 1: Regret

**Author's Note: So, I swore, back when I finished The Man With No Name, that I wasn't going to do the whole post-a-story-while-writing-it thing again. No, I would first finish the story, then post it, and so avoid torturing my readers with lengthy delays and myself with the pressure.**

**Unfortunately, it appears that I work better under pressure. sigh So, yeah. It's been, what, three years? since I finished the Doctor Who/Firefly fic, and I haven't managed to finish anything since. Granted, a lot has been going on in my life-but really nothing that accounts for the utter lack of motivation. So I extend my apologies, dear readers, as I invite you back into the rollercoaster of is-Sara-working-on-it-or-does-she-have-writers-block once again. :) I do hope you'll ride; the results in the past, at least, have turned out rather well.**

**As ever, I try to write a fic so that anyone, whether they are a devotee of the fandom or not, can read it and make sense of it. This one might be a little harder than some, based as it is on the beloved (by few-but-many, at least) Thief series of games. If you haven't ever played them, do. All three of the games have made it to my Top-Games-Ever list, and I have expended much research and time in making sure the first two will work on my newer computer system.**

**For those unfamiliar with the Thief 'verse, a quick overview: Dark, steampunk fantasy set in a sprawling location known only as the City to its inhabitants. There are two major philosophical factions: the Hammers, who worship the Builder and are more than a bit rigid in their outlook, and the Pagans, who worship the Trickster and who fall into the creepy-tree-hugger category. The Hammers and the Pagans really don't like each other. There are other factions, of course: the Mages, whose Order originated in a foreign land; the City Watch (who are, I think, badly in need of a Vimes); the nobles, who are more interested in increasing their wealth, advancing their prestige, and playing political games than in the overall welfare of the City; the Baron, who is something of an absentee ruler as the City is embroiled in a more-or-less constant war with a neighboring city-state called Blackbrook. And then, of course, there are the Keepers: shadowy, behind-the-scenes players who value knowledge, who create prophecy, who wield a strange form of magic contained in glyph-writing, and who seek above all else to maintain what they refer to as 'the Balance.' Caught in the middle of all of this is Garrett, the City's greatest thief, who as a child showed abilities for concealment (and for seeing through concealment) that the Keepers valued highly. They took him in and raised him, training him as one of their own-and he was their most promising acolyte. But shortly before his training was complete, Garrett turned his back on the Keepers and struck out on his own, using his Keeper-honed abilities to become a master thief. Unfortunately for Garrett, however, he is and always has been caught in prophecy's coils, and over the last five years (the events of the first three Thief games), he has found himself acting as the City's hidden savior time and again. Now the Keepers are gone-but Garrett still can't escape prophecy...**

**Chapter One: Regret (Or, How Life Always Kicks You in the Teeth)**

_Death is but a doorway._

– Inscription carved on an Old Quarter tomb.

For a bar that serves ale with a distinct relation to donkey piss, the _Crippled Burrick_ is popular tonight. There's barely room to breathe, let alone try and enjoy a quiet drink. Although 'enjoy' is probably too strong a word where the _Burrick's_ ale is concerned. It's been more than a fortnight since the night people are calling 'the Statues' Ball,' and they're still gathering in the taverns to discuss it. They're still burying the dead in some parts of the City, too. It's been an eventful month all around: the unexpected sight of statues walking around the city (and killing anyone who got in their way) and the equally amazing appearance of a building, out of thin air, in the City heart nearly overshadowed the abrupt and inexplicable collapse of the Clocktower just a few days before that–an event which, according to the gossips, _must_ be related somehow. They aren't wrong about that part, at least, though the rest of the speculations being aired are wild, ranging from goblins to a Pagan ritual gone wrong to an invasion of ghosts. None are anywhere close to the truth. That's something only a handful of people know. I count myself among them, to my bitter regret.

"Get ya s'more ale, luv?" says a tired voice at my elbow. It's the bar wench, with her haggard face and mousy hair straggling loose from its knot. I nod, and slide my tankard closer to her. She fills it, then casts a disdainful glance over the noisy crowd. "Buncha damn fools," she grumbles. "Talkin' over the same things over 'n over again, as if it'd make a diff'rence. Don't really matter what happened. 'S over and done, and life's still tha same." She hitches a shoulder, then looks down at me. "Right?"

I pull the filled tankard back toward me. "True enough," I lie. Life _isn't _the same. Not for me, not for the unfortunate victims of the Hag and her statues, not for the entire City, though they don't know it yet. I expect her to leave then, but she lingers. I realize her gaze has dropped to my bare left hand.

"'Ere, now, wha's that?"

That damned mark. I haven't gotten around to investing in a set of gloves yet. I suppose I'm deluding myself that if I just ignore it, it'll go away on its own. Foolish of me, since I'm a man with a few too many identifying marks already. Looks like I'd better stop living in denial and go buy new gloves.

"Why'd you go and have a key tattooed on yer hand?" she asks curiously. "Though it don't quite look like a tattoo, neither...Almost seems ta...glitter, when the light hits it right..."

I meet her gaze blandly, slowly sliding my marked hand out of sight. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," I tell her. Then, nodding toward the far end the bar I add, "I think you're wanted."

She takes the hint, and I decide the time has come to leave. There are too many people here, and too many of them are in a speculating mood tonight. I throw a few coins on the table (even I don't stoop to robbing low-end taverns like the _Burrick_) and slip out the door.

Outside the cold damp of an autumn night and the ever-present smell of smoke and rust that hangs over the City dispel the warm fug of the tavern. I pull my hood up and tug it closer about my face, though I leave the eyepatch concealing my tell-tale mechanical eye where it is. Too many members of the City Watch have my description these days, and that eye features prominently on the list.

It's full dark by now, and fog is curling clammy tails around the lampposts and buildings. It's the sort of night I relish, a moonless night when folk go to bed early and guards are lulled by boredom. There's a wealthy merchant's home not three blocks from where I stand, a house I know to be lightly guarded this time of year while the master stays at his country estate. My funds are getting low, and I need to eat. I should go to work.

I pause outside the house, staring up at the dark facade and feel...nothing. The thrill that has kept me company on every heist I've ever committed is gone, leaving me cold. My gaze drops from the building to my hand. Even in the shadows the key glyph is visible to me, glimmering faintly with an eldritch light. For more than fifteen years I've evaded the Keeper's call, refusing to play their games willingly, shunning the power of their glyphs and their prophecies. Now I can feel power, like and yet unlike the Keepers', woken within me. Now I'm marked, irrevocably bound to their fate. And I don't even know what that fate is; since the night I faced the Hag, I haven't seen a Keeper in the City. And I've been looking.

Damn it.

I don't want to get involved with them _or_ their damned prophecies. There was a reason I left the Order as soon I was reasonably sure they wouldn't kill me for taking their training and going into business for myself. And yet, somehow, in the past five years I've been dragged right into the middle of events any sensible thief would stay the hell away from. I've always considered myself a sensible thief; apparently, I've been deluding myself, because I didn't run screaming for the nearest ship out of the City five years ago when a strange man named Constantine hired me to steal the Eye. 'Why me?' is a question that occurs to me often, right alongside 'Why do I bother?' I still can't answer the first, and until two weeks ago I would have answered the second with one word: profit. The City's no good to me destroyed, and any thief with half a brain knows that civil chaos is bad for business. I bother because I'm interested in survival, and money. But that isn't the only reason, not anymore. I only wish I knew what those other reasons are.

I'm still keenly interested in survival, however, and I still need money. But the thrill is gone, and I can't explain why. Maybe I'm getting old. Builder knows that, at thirty-four, I've lived far longer than most in my profession. I'm still nimble, still the fastest, still the best–but how much longer will that last? How many years do I have left in me before my joints stiffen and my reflexes slow? Before I'm forced to retire or die young?

All the more argument to pick up the trade again. I need a retirement fund, and badly. I've always had trouble keeping coin in my pocket–especially in these last five years. The smart thing to do would be to hit that townhouse tonight so I can start looking for a better apartment in the morning and still have enough to eat decently for the rest of the month.

Instead, I pull my cloak tightly around me and turn my steps toward home. Mist swirls around my shins and tugs at the edges of my hood, seeping in to caress my face with cold damp fingers. Unanswered questions slosh in my brain; I haven't, alas, drunk enough ale to drown them out. _Why _have I been marked? The barmaid is right: that's no tattoo on my hand. More like a...a brand. Or something equally unpleasant. I hadn't asked for it to be put there; it had shown up all by itself, the night I raced three steps ahead of Death and the Hag to save the City and my own skin. I think it happened when I set the Eye–that damned artifact that has plagued my life for the last five years–into its place, and faced Gammal down. _Something _happened then–I'm still not sure what, exactly, other than it was a fairly impressive light show. And she'd been scared as hell of _me. _Somehow, I don't think that fear was down to my stealth and cunning and glorious reputation alone.

Unfortunately, anyone who could possibly give me an answer–even the vague, half-truthful kind the Keepers love so much–has gone and vanished more thoroughly than I ever dreamed of managing myself. Their compound is emptier than a whore's heart–I know, I checked. While the City Watch and various city council members were down below trying to figure out how to get inside, I slipped in through a more...convenient path and found only empty halls and rooms. Hardly even a dropped coin–though that was probably more to do with me spitefully clearing the place of small valuables earlier in the month than any hasty packing on the Keepers' part.

The really strange thing was that the books were still there, in the Elder Library, in the Lower Libraries, and lying open on the desks in the scribarium. The Keepers _love_ their books. Even I couldn't escape their training without absorbing some of that love myself, though I admit to preferring the sort of books that make me a tidy profit at my fence's. But the really, _really_ strange thing, the thing that still sends chills creeping down my spine, was that every single one of the books I found in the Compound written by the Keepers themselves was blank. The glyphs were gone, vanished from the vellum pages like mist under the morning sun. I hadn't entirely believed what Artemus had said about the Final Glyph until that moment. I still can't believe it's all _completely_ gone. I can do without the Keepers–they don't like me much and the feeling has always been mutual–but at least with their books I might have had a shot at getting _some_ answers for myself. I still need to check the Library in Stonemarket, but I'm not going to hold my breath. The only glyph I've seen around the City these days is the one on my left hand, and unless I chance to find all the missing Keepers drunk in a tavern somewhere, I'm on my own.

Which makes it business as usual, I suppose.

I keep my head low as I turn out of Stonemarket and into Old Quarter, where I have my new, hah, _garret_ apartment. It isn't much more than a hideout I keep for emergencies, a bed and a door and not much else, but even after the Keeper Enforcers stopped trying to assassinate me I hadn't felt much like moving back into the place in South Quarter. Too many thugs knew where I lived, and my landlord there was getting...difficult. Kept trying to raise my rent. Admittedly, this was probably because I kept stealing the money meant for his blackmailer as soon as the man delivered it to the drop, and consequently he was getting strapped for cash. Somehow, though, I can't work up a lot of sympathy for the man.

Unfortunately, moving out means that my current accommodation barely has enough room to turn around in; the tiny room is stacked nearly full with those possessions I'd managed to rescue from the old apartment. I suppose the romantics out there might be disappointed to hear a master thief such as I felt it necessary to break into his own tenement building to steal back his dishes, but I _hate_ having to replace stuff like that. Especially seeing as it survived assassins and thugs _and_ my landlord. Crockery of that sturdy quality isn't easy to find.

Nudging a crate of books aside (the ones too worn, battered, and occasionally too interesting for me to sell), I wrestle the narrow door of the hideout shut and draw the bar. My current home is little more than a forgotten attic room in the top of an Old Quarter building, walled off from the rest of the building sometime in the distant past. Ordinary folks don't spend all that much time on the rooftops, and there are dozens of little holes like this throughout the City, unknown to most. I've had this one set aside since the _last _time the City Watch found out where I lived. It saved my hide when the Enforcers were after me. Without even moonlight filtering in through the window tonight, however, the place looks indescribably depressing.

I'm not drunk. Which is a shame, because being drunk is the only acceptable excuse for all this maudlin self-pity. I tell myself I'm just tired, still worn out from recent events, and that in a few days I'll be feeling more my old self, ready to get back out there and continue my career as the City's greatest thief.

I almost believe it, too.

* * *

The window in my rooftop hideout faces east. This alone is a compelling reason to find new living quarters, since every damn morning I'm woken up at dawn. Some days I'm able to go back to sleep, despite the unaccustomed and persistent light, until the more decent hour of three or four in the afternoon.

This was not one of those days. I try pulling the thin pillow over my head to shut out the light, but it doesn't help. I'd gone to bed too early the night before; I'm not tired enough to ignore the daylight. Normally, I'd stay in and read, but I'm out of food and I haven't eaten since yesterday afternoon. I can already tell it's going to be a bad day.

I try to avoid going out during the day, wanted as I am–though if the Watch _did_ get their hands on me on my rare daytime excursions, they'd probably die of shock. Wouldn't stop them arresting me though: the Watch is by and large incompetent, but not _that_ incompetent. Therefore, I long ago made preparations for going out in the daylight, and it only takes a few minutes to dig out my daytime costume from the crate where it's been doing double duty cushioning my surviving crockery. It's a simple enough ensemble. I generally liberate the clothes from some well-to-do merchant once a season or so: it doesn't do to be seen walking around years out of fashion, after all. Draws attention, in certain parts of the city. Frock coats are in this year; fortunately for me, they're an article of clothing in which I can hide all sorts of goodies. Shirt, waistcoat, and pantaloons leave me feeling awkward and somewhat naked, but I put that down to being mostly unarmed. What passes for my "armor" isn't much more than padding to keep me from destroying knees, elbows, or other bits important to second story work rather than actually being any good against weapons. Once a hat is added to my daytime clothes and an eyepatch covers my mechanical eye I doubt even my best fence would recognize me. Just another ordinary citizen who had an unfortunate accident with a pair of scissors...

The stylized key on the back of my hand catches my eye as I adjust the coat, and I pause to frown at it. I'm a simple soul, so the shirt I wear beneath coat and vest does _not_ have lace cuffs to cover the backs of my hands. I'll just have to keep them tucked in my pockets until I can steal a pair of gloves. Glancing out the window at the brilliant, clear blue sky, I amend 'steal' to 'buy.' I'm good, but I'm not about to push my luck. She's been avoiding me lately; I'd hate to scare her off through sheer idiocy.

Getting out of my hideout is a little tricky. Thankfully, this is Old Quarter, and most folks don't poke their nose into other people's business–even if that business involves clambering off a rooftop in broad daylight. I jump the last several feet, catching myself against a grimy wall.

I can't remember the last time I was out this early. It can't be much past eight o'clock in the morning. Builder, what a dreadful hour. I tug my hat lower, trying not to squint too much in the bright sunshine. There seem to be a lot of people out and about–must be down to the weather. For once, the smog from the factories and foundries seems to have headed elsewhere, and the air is clear. Mostly clear, anyway. Passing a Watch post, I find myself heartily wishing a nice, thick, yellow fog would roll in. But the watchmen are busy ogling a passing whore, and don't give me a second glance. The suit and the eyepatch are doing their job; now if only I can just stop twitching...

Breakfast is easily managed: I snag a roll off a cart while the baker is distracted by a whining group of kids. An apple is acquired in a similar fashion. I pay for the cheese at another stall, since the vendor shrewdly keeps it in chunks too large to cart off easily. Food achieved, I turn my attention elsewhere.

The crowd catches my eye immediately. It isn't a fight: no one is chanting, or cheering combatants on. It's probably a corpse. They aren't exactly unusual in Old Quarter. The nastier type of mugger prefers the narrow, hard-to-escape alleys in this area of the City, and the occasional stray zombie sometimes escapes the Quarantined section to chew on an unwary insomniac.

I'm no more immune to the prospect of an interesting corpse and its accompanying street-theater than any other denizen of the City, and the added temptation of a crowd of distracted people with valuables has me drifting toward the mob's outskirts in no time. A fat man strikes me as particularly promising: the fool has even left his purse strings dangling from his coat pocket.

Generally speaking, a corpse doesn't excite me overmuch, unless it gets up and start chasing me around. (It happens more often than you might think, in this town.) There isn't a body, though, just a mess of blood–a fact which has many of the gawkers expressing their feelings of dissatisfaction. I relieve the fat man of his purse and a handkerchief (silk, worth a few coins) just as the crowd loses interest and begins to break up. Then, as I turn to go myself, something else catches my eye amidst the drying bloodstains: a pattern in the gore, as though the blood-spiller paused to do a little artistic arranging. I pause myself, squinting my real eye at the mess and wishing I dare remove my patch long enough to take a gander with the mechanical eye. It has its handicaps, but it can zoom in to catch _very_ small details. Even without its aid, however, it doesn't take long to make out just _what_ the pattern in the blood is. I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

It's a Keeper glyph.

I don't recognize the meaning of it offhand–though I imagine that since it's written in blood, it's probably _not _a friendly greeting–but the curves and lines are unmistakably Keeper, or something very, very like it. A fortnight spent combing the City for my elusive associates, and now this turns up right in my own neighborhood.

It can't be a good sign.

I force myself to turn away from the glyph. Standing here gawping will only draw attention, and that's the last thing I ever need. My mind races, though, as I continue on my way toward South Quarter. Is this some kind of personal message? Or something more–something worse? The symbol on my right hand erupts into sudden, fierce itching, but I stomp on the urge to rub it. The itch is only in my head, after all.

But I want answers. If a body was found with the blood, it'll be in the basement of the local Watch House, awaiting either further examination or eventual burial.

Looks like I have some breaking and entering to do, after all.


	2. Chapter 2: The Dead Do Talk, Sometimes

**Chapter Two: The Dead Do Talk, Sometimes (But They Never Have Anything Nice To Say)**

_For Death comes to he who Builds not_

_And Binds his Soul with Chains of Iron_

_Woe unto the Destroyer,_

_For the Gatekeeper shall not let Him pass._

_-_Tenets of the Master Builder

Like everything else in Old Quarter, the local Watch House is ancient, crumbling, and seriously lax in security. The captain here is a joke: he spends most of his time blind drunk. His watchmen aren't much better, and Old Quarter is the catchall for the dregs of the City Watch. Which, considering the Watch's typical standards, makes them dregs indeed. Even so, I need to be careful; I'm not sure even my reputation would survive an embarrassing arrest by a bunch of gormless Old Quarter guards.

Getting in isn't a problem: by sunset, most of the OQ Watch is smashed. I could probably stroll in wearing a pink ballet costume and feathers, and they wouldn't notice. Don't think I'm not tempted, though I manfully resist it. As the single greatest thief this City has ever known, I probably ought to try for _some_ dignity. Anyway, I haven't _got _a ballet costume.

I go in via the privy window. This Watch House doesn't appear to have much of a budget for cleaning services; it's a good thing I have a strong stomach. With the guards supposedly on duty up front singing or snoring, it's a simple matter to slip down the hall to the door that leads to the cellars and the morgue. It's unlocked. Which is really kind of pathetic. I've broken into–and out of–plenty of Watch Houses in my day, including Headquarters on one memorable occasion, and none of them have been what I'd call a challenge. But this–this is just sad.

"Morgue" is a pretty fancy term for what is little more than a damp, moldy cellar. It's plenty cold, though, which I suppose is the only pressing requirement for corpse storage. There aren't any guards on duty down here. What a surprise. I don't bother with sneaking much once I shut the cellar door behind me.

Surprisingly, it's wired with electricity, albeit only a single, harsh light dangling on a wire from the groin-vaulted ceiling. As a rule, I dislike electric lights: they aren't easily extinguished at a distance, and eat up the shadows in an extremely inconvenient fashion. This time, however, I'm not too concerned: I'll need all the light I can get to examine the corpse.

As this is the Old Quarter, the corpse I want isn't the only one currently cooling in the Watch House cellar. There are several shroud-draped forms on a long, wide table opposite the stairs, and a lone covered corpse on a metal gurney in the center of the room. On the wall next to the stairs is a stone sink, and beside it the only significant collection of shadows, barely big enough for a man my size. If all else fails, I suppose I can borrow a shroud and pretend to be a corpse. It isn't like the guard here would notice one extra. Not a terribly appealing idea, though.

Odds are good that the body I'm looking for is the one on the gurney, in all its lonely splendor. I cross to it and pull back the shroud–and only just manage not to reel backwards in horror.

I've seen plenty of corpses in my misspent life. As mentioned previously, I usually only get worried about the animate ones intent on eating my brains. But this...Builder preserve me and the Trickster hide me, this one is enough even to tie my cast-iron stomach into knots.

Someone has meticulously and methodically carved nearly every inch of the victim's skin. And, judging from the amount of gore dried on his skin, most of it was done while he was alive. Not a pleasant way to go. In fact, on the list of extremely horrible ways to die, it's right near the top, I should think.

Gritting my teeth and trying not to imagine what the process must have felt like, I pull the sheet the rest of the way off and begin looking for something–anything–that will tell me something more than 'crazy killer with a knife.' That blood-written glyph has to mean _something_. I stare hard at the pathetic lump of former humanity, and slowly realize that, beneath the crusted blood, the cuts and slices aren't random. They form, in fact, something that looks disturbingly like–surprise, surprise–Keeper glyphs. I close my real eye and zoom the vision of the mechanical one in for a closer look. I recently did a few favors for the Hammers (though it was mostly to keep them from hunting me down and torturing me to death for stealing a relic of theirs–for the Keepers, mind you), and one of them liked me well enough to offer me an adjustment on my eye. It still doesn't see in color, but it captures light a lot better, gives me a clearer picture than it did previously. The picture it's giving me right now makes me wish I'd found something better to do with my evening.

It doesn't take long to find the tattoo on the man's wrist. I never got one–I left before anyone could inflict _that_ bit of nonsense on me–but it was all the rage among the other novices my age. The man's name doesn't matter–I know what he was, now. It seems the Keepers haven't left the City after all–or, at least, not all of them. And something is killing them off, horribly. Again.

Fan_tas_tic.

It's difficult to make out beneath the blood–and I don't dare clean off the area, since even a drunk OQ guard might notice that–but the pattern of cuts on the center of the corpse's chest looks disturbingly like one of the glyphs that represents death. Specifically: the one that represents unnatural death and entropy. I bend closer, trying not to breathe the smell of death and blood clinging to the corpse, and allow my real eye to take its turn.

It's similar, all right, but even beneath the crusted gore I can tell that it's just slightly _wrong_. I tug the glove from my left hand and reach out to lay my fingers very lightly over the torn flesh. The corpse's flesh is cold and rubbery, and the dried blood and rough edges of the wound feel harsh as sandpaper. Don't ask me why I did it. I certainly don't go around touching carved-up corpses just because. I'm not even sure what I expected to happen. Nothing, probably, other than a case of the heebie-jeebies.

I manage not to yelp in alarm as the key-mark on the back of my hand glows like a sullen coal. It doesn't hurt, but pain would be preferable to the sudden, chilling influx of knowledge that floods me.

The glyph carved into the corpse is incomplete, incorrectly transcribed. But it still has some power, and it reeks with dark intentions, greed, malice...I remember, then, what I had seen in the Hag's lair, written in her own hand: that there were others like her, who sought what she had, but lacked the Glyph of Transfiguration to complete their power. Someone is using this Glyph of Entropy with similar intent–to gain power, or prolonged life, all the usual stuff–and going about it all wrong. For which the Builder might be thanked, if I were in the habit of thanking Him, because if it was ever gotten _right_, things would go very bad indeed...

Footsteps on the stairs inform me I'm out of time. I tug the sheet back over the mangled corpse, and, as lamplight puts in an appearance in the morgue's doorway I duck swiftly into the pool of shadows near the sink. The odd angle of the old basement promises to keep the shadows intact, even with the added presence of a lamp to the electric light. I only need a very small amount of deep shadow, and a lot of luck in such a cramped room. Luck...and Keeper training. I let out my breath slowly, focusing my will on becoming _not here_. It's probably an unnecessary precaution, trotting out the training like this, ut as I said: I don't think my reputation would stand up to being caught by _this_ bunch. Best not to take chances.

Surprisingly, the newcomer is a woman: tall, with a graceful, heavy frame. Not a guard, either; she's dressed in ordinary clothing–vest, blouse, plain leather trousers and boots. Her hair is white-blonde–and from where I am it even looks to be natural. Unusual. She carries no weapons, and wears no jewelry beyond a pair of plain silver hoops in her ears. A perfectly ordinary citizen, withal, neither wealthy nor poor.

An ordinary citizen has no more business here at this time of night than I do.

She pulls back the shroud covering my corpse of interest, and stands a moment looking down at it. Not wincing, or changing color, or doing much of anything except frowning faintly. She moves around the slab then, changing her angle of view–and presenting her back to me. I ease my blackjack from its loop on my belt. Enigma she might be, but she's intruding on my time, and I don't fancy hanging around waiting for her to go away. I'm tired, and confused, and I dislike the combination. Hitting someone on the head is an extremely appealing prospect right now, and hitting an inconvenience on the head always cheers me right up. I'm not picky about gender, either. A woman can kill me just as dead as a man, and they're twice as likely to go for help rather than proving how tough they are by taking me on alone. I tense, waiting for the optimum moment, when her attention will be fully on the corpse and not on anything else, like a not-terribly-small man rushing up behind her with a blackjack.

Then she picks up the dead man's wrist, the one with the Keeper's tattoo, and lets out a soft "ah," and I hesitate. That sounded like a noise of recognition. I sink back deeper into the shadows, but keep a grip on the cosh, waiting to see if any information might be forthcoming. She seems the type who might think out loud.

Later, I will wish heartily I'd knocked her out right then and been done with it. Hindsight is _such_ a burden.

She moves back around the slab, turning her face back into my line of sight as she pauses by the corpse's head. Hers is not a beautiful face, but there is something in the wide-set eyes and full mouth that might make something like it. It reminds me, for a brief moment, of Viktoria. I shove the thought, and the accompanying stab of old pain, from my lost eye and elsewhere, away. The woman leans down, apparently studying something on the battered, torn features of the body. She even tilts her head so she's practically nose-to-nose with the dead man, nearly close enough to touch. I can only see one of her eyes from this angle: opened wide, almost luminous beneath the harsh electric glare, it's the same color as the sea under a winter sky. Then I notice that her lips are moving, and realize why the wintry imagery sprang to mind. She's whispering something, words I cannot catch but which send chills crawling over my skin. She straightens, slowly–and I see what looks like a thin stream of white mist curling from the dead man's lips to hers.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand right up. What the _hell_?

As she straightens fully, the thin vapor hovers in the air above the corpse. "Mist" is the best word–the _only _word–I care to apply to it, but it curls and twists in a way no ordinary mist ever did and it does not dissipate. It's barely visible in the lamplight.

"Can you hear me?" Her voice is soft, cool, velvet-dark.

The mist seems to thicken.

"I want to help you. Please answer my questions."

The mist twists further, and at last, on the very edge of my hearing comes a sigh. _Try..._

I feel as though icy water has just been dumped down my back. This is beyond creepy. This is lost-in-haunt-infested-ruins-and-me-out-of-holy-water-territory.

"Thank you." The woman seems to brace herself. "What is your name?"

_Keeper..._

"Yes, I know. Your name?"

_No..._

She sighs. "Very well. Do you know me?"

The mist writhes, and a bone-chilling hiss fills the air. _Guardian..._

"Yes."

_No..._

"I am here to help you find peace. Please help me."

The vapors grow thicker, and for one, awful moment I swear I see a face there. _Broken silence..._

"I don't understand." At last her tone of voice changes, losing its deep calm, becoming slightly brittle. With frustration? I know the feeling.

_He seeks...takes that which is not his..._

Oh, Builder, I hope that isn't a reference to me. I've had enough murders pinned on me recently by the Keepers.

_Prophecy...comes..._

"Please." Now there is open pleading in her voice, and though the light is poor and the cellar is freezing I can see sweat standing on her forehead. Whatever it is she's doing, it's difficult. "I don't understand your words. Can you be clearer? I promise, by the cause I serve, I will not detain you much longer. Soon you can rest."

_No rest...prophet...he must stop..._

And then the mist is gone, and the woman sags forward, bracing herself against the metal gurney, breathing as raggedly as if she'd just run from Old Quarter to the Docks and back again. My hand aches, clutched around my blackjack so hard I'm surprised the bones haven't snapped. I draw in a slow breath, and force my fingers to relax.

So, this mysterious woman is calling herself a Guardian. Interesting. I'd seen references to "Guardians" in ancient Keeper texts, back in my novice days. Ghost stories, mostly: the sort of thing you might tell on a snowy night to scare yourself and your friends out of sleep.

She pushes herself upright, moving like an old, old woman. She reaches for the lamp and turns toward the stairs–and pauses. I tense, ready to pounce if she shows the slightest suspicion. I'm not thrilled at the idea of tackling her, not if she really _is_ a Guardian. Luck smiles, however, and the woman disappears up the stairs. I stay where I am, marveling once again at how my life can get so complicated so damned _fast._

A horribly butchered Keeper is bad enough. A stranger who may or may not be a member of a mythical order of necromancers–_that's_ enough to make me seriously consider declaring myself a Pagan and moving out to the Wild-Lands.

* * *

I return to my hideout, in the faint hope that sleep will afford me some escape, and perhaps a chance to dream up some solutions. It's a failed hope: sleep makes like a thief and escapes, taking my longed-for peace of mind tucked away in his sack. The moon is on the wane, about halfway to dark, providing light enough for any drunk staggering home, and shadow enough for any creature of the night. Unwilling to remain alone in my depressing room, I take myself and my dark thoughts for a walk on the Thieves' Highway, the rooftops of the City. You can get anywhere in town without ever setting foot on the cobbles, if you know the paths. I know them very well.

Considering the earlier events, I'm not terribly surprised when I find myself on the rooftop of the building that hides the Keepers' Stonemarket Library. The door-glyph that originally granted entry has vanished like all the others, but one window in particular is perfectly real, and still accessible to someone like me. I even keep a rope stashed behind a loose stone on the roof, in case I need to get in.

The Library is as empty as the Compound, and the silence here is, if possible, even broodier. I find myself shivering as I cross the echoing halls; I feel strangely exposed and vulnerable here, though the lamps are extinguished and the shadows are deep. Maybe it's only the ghosts–or my own, unwanted feelings of guilt.

Blood still stains the floor of the main library, where so many Keepers fell weeks before, slaughtered by the Hag when I freed the child Lauryl's spirit and stripped Gamall of her disguise. The stains are black marks in the moonlight filtering from the oculus. I hadn't known about the massacre until it was too late. Even if I _had_ known what was coming, I'm not sure I could–or would–have done any different; I'd promised LaurylI would free her tortured soul. I may be a thief, but I generally don't make promises I don't intend to keep–it's one of the habits that's kept me alive over the years. Keeping that particular promise, however, had led to a slaughter for which I am indirectly responsible, and I'm still not sure how I feel about that.

Many of the shelves are broken, their contents–so precious to the Keepers–spilled across the floor. Marks are burned into stone and wood, signs of the futile attempts of the Keepers to defend themselves from their enemy with glyph-magic.

I bend to retrieve a book from the floor. A few pages, ripped loose from their stitching, slide to the stones with a soft hiss. They, like the remaining pages, are blank, without a trace that anything had ever been written there. I set the book aside on a table–still miraculously upright–and reach for another. It proves as empty as the first.

I become conscious of a sudden, aching desire to talk to Artemus. Builder knows, my relationship with him had often been as strained as with any of the other Keepers, but of all of them he was the only one I might have called 'friend,' and meant it. As the Keeper who found me, and the one who more or less raised me, I know he must have been hurt when I turned my back on the Order, but for all that he never showed me the mistrust or contempt the others did. Looking back, I realize that he always seemed to trust me beyond reason–that he was the one who turned to me when the Keepers proved unable–or unwilling–to involve themselves in the events threatening the City. He'd been the only Keeper I trusted to tell me more than half-truths. He might have told me more about what is going on now, how to deal with this strange aftermath.

But Artemus is dead, murdered by the Hag so she could steal his form. I don't even know when he died; he disappeared some days before the final confrontation, and I still don't know if the Artemus I spoke to in Gamall's lair was truly him or not. Perhaps 'father' might have been a better word for him than 'friend,' but it's far too late now for anything but regret. I'm on my own, and for the first time I'm actually sorry about this fact. Before, there was always Artemus, whether I wanted him or not.

I emerge from my thoughts to discover that I have, against all reason, been tidying the chaos: picking up books, retrieving scattered, torn, empty pages, stacking them neatly on the surviving tables. It's that old Keeper training: some part of me that can't bear to see books, even empty ones, so badly treated. Or perhaps it's only my body's way of dealing with the grief. I'd experienced something similar after the Soulforge, coming face to face with Viktoria's sacrifice in the days following its destruction. Like Artemus, she'd meant more to me than I'd cared to admit, and it was only after she was gone I'd discovered how much her absence _hurt_. I've spent my whole life trying to avoid such attachments, and still the damned things reach out to snare me like a web.

Sudden anger heats my blood, and I turn, intending to sweep the stack of useless books from the table–but as my marked left hand brushes the topmost cover, the heat of anger becomes something else entirely. I have just enough time to register the fact that the key on the back of my hand is glowing with white hot light before my senses scatter like roaches before lamplight.

* * *

I wake up face down on the flagstones. They're very cold. Slightly more comfortable than my current mattress, but cold. Heavy, angular shapes pressing against my hands and arms and nudging gently against my aching skull tell me that the stack of books from the table had, at some point, fallen on top of me. I roll onto my back, allowing myself only a soft hiss as every muscle in my body shrieks in protest. I know I'm alone in the Library, but a thief's instincts don't allow me to indulge in any louder noises.

I don't stay on my back very long: books and stones do not a comfy bed make. With a monumental effort of will I manage to sit up. My good eye is blurry, unwilling to focus; the eye socket that holds my mechanical eye feels like it's harboring a red-hot coal. I shut them both and cradle my head in my hands, very gingerly, and try to remember what happened.

I have nothing but a few confused, fragmented images–so fragmented I can't even form a conscious picture, only vague impressions of _doom_ and _wrong_. The worst part is, I can't even determine _why_ I find it so hard to focus; my head hurts, sure, but I've had worse injuries. The first few hours after Viktoria, acting on the Trickster's orders, tore my eye out come to mind, and I'd managed even then to clear my head enough to think and sneak my way out of the Pagan god's crazy mansion. I'm not even dribbling blood everywhere this time.

At length I feel like opening my eyes again, and to my relief real and artificial both cooperate. I shift my weight, preparing to reach for the table edge and haul myself upright, when something catches my attention: one of the books, lying open near where my left hand had been. Only it isn't blank anymore: in the faint moonlight filtering from the oculus overhead I can make out the shape of a single word, scrawled large upon the page. I reach out, pull it close enough to read, and feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up.

_Prophecy_, it reads.

It's written in my own hand. Glancing down, I can see ink–it has to be ink, surely, though I cannot tell in this light if it is black or blood-red–spattered across my fingertips. A few inches away is the spilled ink bottle and the broken pen.

I stare down at it for a long, long time, thinking nothing in particular beyond the faint, whimpering wish that I were someone else right now. But sitting around doing nothing has never been something I'm good at, and finally my brain kicks into motion. The ghost–or whatever that was–back at the morgue had spoken of a prophet to the woman. I have no idea how to go about finding her, but I can think of another source that might at least point me in the right direction.


	3. Chapter 3: Chasing Prophecy

**Chapter Three: Chasing Prophecy (Never a Good Idea)**

_And when the Unwritten Times shall come upon us,_

_Then shall Prophecy itself hang in the balance._

_He will hold in his hand the Key of the Gates,_

_And Darkness will hold sway over the land._

– Annals of the First Age

I slip in through a window I've used previously, but to my surprise the small sitting room is empty of its usual occupant. It's also a great deal neater than the last time I saw it. Gone are the drifts of notes, the maps and diagrams pinned to the walls, the stacks of books about City history and legend. A glance around shows the books put away on the bookshelves, and a new secretariat stuffed full of neatly arranged papers. I slip over to it and tug out a paper far enough to recognize it as familiar. I'm faintly relieved: it would have been a little worrisome if the man had _completely _abandoned his forty-year obsession.

The soft sound of footsteps in another room draw my attention from the note. I slide it back into its place and slide myself into a shadow. He's never tried to arrest or attack me before, but I'm not relying on that now. He is, after all, a Hammerite priest.

A sturdily built man of about fifty enters the room, carrying an oil lamp in one hand and carefully balancing a book and a mug of tea in the other. He sets all three down on the low table between the armchairs, then leaves the room again. I remain still, watching. Inspector Drept seems years younger than the last time I saw him, looking more his age than the obsessed, worn-down old man who first set me on the Hag's trail. He moves like a man given a new purpose in life.

I'm a little surprised to discover that this pleases me.

Drept returns with a plate of biscuits, and spends some time fussing over the arrangements of food, drink, and book. I wait until he is settled, then move silently over to the other armchair.

In our previous meetings, I had noted that Drept–unlike most of his very excitable brethren–is supremely unflappable. Perhaps hunting for a supernatural killer across forty years will do that to a man; I don't know, having never tried it myself. Regardless, when he looks up and notices me sitting in the chair across from him, he only starts slightly. Then he closes his book around one finger and says, in his slow, formal way: "I had not expected to see thee again, my shadowy friend."

I raise my eyebrows, though I doubt he can see much of my expression in the shadows of my hood. "Odd choice of word for a Hammer," I comment. "'Friend.'"

"Art thou not my friend?" he asks, sounding a little surprised. "Didst thou not assist me in mine quest, and slay the Hag that murdered the friend of my childhood?" He rises, and I tense, but he only leaves again for the other room, returning a short time later with another mug of tea, which he sets down near me. I eye it uneasily.

"'Tis not poisoned," says Drept, noticing my hesitation. He sounds faintly amused. Nettled, I push my hood back and reach for the tea.

"I'm still a thief," I remind him.

The other man smiles a little. "There are worse things to be in this world, my friend. And the debt I owe thee for destroying the Hag is greater than any treasures thou might have stolen."

Well, I've always known that Drept was strange, even for a Hammer. The fact that he did not reach for a weapon the first time he met me probably ought to have been a pretty clear indication.

"I didn't actually kill the Hag myself, you know." I don't know why I'm trying so hard to convince him he shouldn't call me 'friend.' After all, I came here to get information out of him, not persuade him that his duty is to arrest me and throw me into Cragscleft Prison.

"No, but thou didst defeat her, and leave her powerless, to meet justice."

I snort, and take a sip of the tea. It's quite good, much better than the brand I can afford. "If you can call getting torn apart by a mob 'justice.'"

"I would," says Drept flatly. "Perhaps not the justice of law and the land, but justice nonetheless. I believe even the Builder would not see it otherwise, for it was His hand that guided thee to me."

I wonder, briefly, if he was part of the mob that took Gamall that night, and just as quickly decide I really don't want to know. "I need a favor," I tell him, setting the mug aside. Getting _too_ comfortable here would be a mistake.

"Of course," he replies evenly. "I suspected thou might. If it is within my power, I shall grant it thee."

I raise an eyebrow. "You don't even know what I'm going to ask."

"Thou wouldst not ask me to betray my faith, Garrett."

He sounds awfully sure of that, and a childish part of me wants to contradict him by asking just that. But I've wasted enough time here already, and Drept is too valuable to alienate out of petty annoyance. "When you were hunting the Hag," I say, "Did you come across anything else strange?"

Drept frowns. "What dost thou mean by 'strange?'"

I hesitate. What _do_ I mean? I'm really not sure. Telling Drept about my little...episode at the Stonemarket Library–or about the Keepers in general–isn't something I care to do just yet. "I'm not sure," I finally tell him. "Anything to do with...prophecy, or prophets." Remembering the freezing morgue, the mutilated corpse, and the woman who coaxed answers from it I added, "Or the Guardians."

The Inspector's puzzlement congeals into something like shock. "What knowest thou of the Guardians?" he demands. For the first time, he sounds a little suspicious.

"Not a lot," I admit. "Ghost stories, mostly."

"There seems aught else any have heard," Drept agrees, relaxing slightly. He falls silent then, obviously thinking my question over. "I have spent much of my life combing the histories of this City," he says in a thoughtful voice. "Though always with mine obsession in mind." His eyes twinkle a little, self-deprecating–yet another trait that marks him as truly odd for a man of his faith. "I knowest that I did find many strange asides within the histories, but I fear, Garrett, that I cannot recall them directly to memory." I don't think I allow the stab of disappointment I feel to show on my face, but _something_ must leak through, because Drept adds: "But it should be only a matter of a few days' searching to find them again. I believe I can recall where I read strange things that had naught to do with the Hag, if I but give it some thought." He gestures, a little vaguely. "Although I have found occupation to fill the hours I once spent seeking justice for Lauryl, my days are not so full that I cannot aid thee. As I have said, I owe thee a great debt, Garrett, and I will do what I can to aid thee."

I shift uncomfortably in the chair, wishing I understood why the insistence that he owes me bothers me so much. Time was, I'd have been _thrilled_ to have a Hammerite owe me a huge favor...

Actually, they once had. I probably could have asked for anything short of their greatest relics. I know they expected me to demand a small fortune, from the comments I'd overheard. And the only thing I'd taken in payment was the mechanical eye, to replace the one the Trickster had torn from me.

Unsettled at this realization, I get to my feet. "I'll be back in a couple of days, then," I tell Drept. I am aware of a pressing need to be somewhere–_anywhere_–else right now. I slip to the window, then pause, my unaccustomed need for clarity suddenly overriding my good sense. "Drept...listen. You don't owe me. I was after the Hag already; you just pointed me in the right direction, and put a name to my enemy. I didn't do it for you. Or Lauryl." There is a bitter taste on my tongue at this last, which I know for a lie. Lauryl's sad, desperate, and above all _dead_ little face still haunts my dreams. I'd done what I could for her, but it had been too little, and decades too late. It doesn't matter, somehow, that she'd been murdered years before I was born. "I did it to save my own skin." That much, at least, _is_ true. For a given value of truth.

But Drept's smile is disturbingly smug as he rises and turns to face me. "I have heard tales, friend Garrett," he says. "Whispered here and there, if one but knows how to listen. Tales of the thief who tricked the Pagan god, and brought about his avatar's destruction when he sought to tear down the sheltering walls of civilization. Whispers that 'twas a thief who turned the madness of the Mechanist Karras and his Soulforge against him, saving all in this City and perhaps beyond when Karras would have murdered all living and left only machines. And I know of myself 'twas a thief, not Inspector Drept, who braved the horrors of the Hag's night and orchestrated her defeat."

My jaw aches, and I force my hands to unclench. "You shouldn't believe every tale you hear, Drept," I whisper.

"Perhaps I shouldst not," he agrees, amiably. "Still, I think I know what sort of heart it is that beats in thy breast. I wonder, Garrett... Dost thou?"

Damn Drept, anyway. I'm still furious three hours later, with a pack of angry guard-dogs (and not a few guards) chasing me up to the rooftops of Lord Ardeth's mansion with a bag of valuables at my belt. At the moment, my fury with Drept and his damned clear-eyed sight is subsumed by fury with myself, for allowing his words to goad me into something so entirely childish as an unplanned, impulsive job–and, even worse, allowing my own unease and anger to make me careless. Honestly, if I get caught by this bunch, I'll _deserve_ to hang.

Although, I'd _love_ to know just when it was Ardeth invested in guard-dogs. Last I heard, the man was terrified of anything remotely canine. It's possible his weariness at getting robbed every other month finally outweighed his phobia. It's also probable that the gossips have been talking about this sudden change in policy.

And I–who spent the last month chasing down the means for defeating supernatural hags and evading supernatural assassins out for my blood–haven't kept up on the gossip, and my lack of knowledge is about to bite me in the ass. Literally, if I'm not quick.

I make it to the roof and from there I manage to lose my pursuit over the Thieves' Highway. I spend a couple of hours nevertheless ensuring I haven't been followed. By the time I reach my hideout, I'm exhausted, aching, and thoroughly disgusted with myself.

Recently, I've been forced to acknowledge certain personality flaws that have complicated my life these last few years. Most notably: the naivete and greed that led me to trust Constantine and his too-good-to-be-true job offer. My life went to hell the day I agreed to retrieve the Eye for him; everything I've done since has been damage control. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

Unfortunately, I've also had to recently own up to the fact that I'm at least as good at deceiving myself as the Keepers were.

Sitting on the edge of my narrow cot, I rub a thumb over the key-sigil on my hand. I've spent a good portion of my life running away from the Keepers and the youthful rebellion and resentment that drove me to run in the first place. I'd joined them because I wanted three square meals a day and a roof over my head year-round, and they were the only ones offering. Back then, I thought I might do anything, learn anything, for such a luxury. If the Keepers had kept me ignorant, I might have been content. But they educated me, and with the education came everything else: pride, arrogance, resentment. With the resentment came anger: they forced me to see more of the world than I ever had before, and it was _broken._ If there's one thing a starving street urchin hangs onto, it's the idea that somewhere, far away maybe, but _somewhere_ everything is perfect–and that there's a chance, however impossible, the urchin might someday get the chance to glimpse it. The Keepers shattered that illusion for me. I forget how, exactly, but I do remember that it seemed very important to me at the time.

I suppose everyone is an idiot when they're twenty.

I don't entirely regret leaving the Keepers, but it's proven damned hard to escape them. I haven't succeeded yet, and I've spent almost fifteen years running. Just now, though, I wish I'd stuck around a little longer, and gotten a better grasp on the prophecy business. Keeper prophecy has plagued my life for the last five years, but in the past the Keepers themselves had always been around to tell me about it, prod and poke me in the right direction (or, at least, the direction they wanted me to go), and occasionally try to kill me when their prophetic interpretations gave them the wrong idea about my allegiances. At this point, I'll even take another game of cat and mouse with the Enforcers if it means I might get a few hints at the end of it.

But maybe...I won't have to. I'm not _completely_ ignorant of the prophecies. I'd done my time in the scribarium as a novice, and Artemus had given me access more than once not only to a hearing of the Interpretations but also to a few of the Books of Prophecy themselves. Part of Keeper training involves sharpening the memory; I'm rusty, to be sure, and I never came close to achieving the flawless recall some of the masters had, but maybe with a little work I can remember some of what I know. It surely can't hurt to try.

I pull off my hood and the leather pads that protect my joints, then pile my tools on the floor, weapons within easy reach. The mechanical eye I carefully remove, placing it on a dish I keep especially for it. (While I can, technically, keep the thing in more or less indefinitely, I learned the hard way that it isn't necessarily a good idea. Interestingly enough, skin will attach itself to almost _anything_, even metal.) I want no distractions while I attempt this; I never was that good at meditation.

I haven't improved, either. I lay down, but before I can get much further than the basics of preparing my mind, I fall asleep.

The sound of quill-tips scratching on vellum is a familiar one, a chorus that has formed the backdrop for the latter half of my childhood. I lean my forehead against the window-pane, the leading and the slick, rippled surface of the thick glass cold against my skin. I shift my weight, seeking with the familiarity of long habit the hollow in the embrasure stones that will ensure a more comfortable seat. No doubt thousands of rumps before mine had claimed this particular spot as their own, but for the time being I alone have staked it as my personal territory. My own private corner of the world.

But not, alas, entirely alone. Although no sound of footsteps comes to my ears, the hair on the back of my neck prickles, and I turn my head from the blurred view of the City below to focus on the dark-robed figure lowering a burning taper to a burnt-out candle. Soft light blooms, gilding the edges of the man's heavy hood, sparking a glint of silver on his right hand: the ring that marks him as a Senior Keeper. I stay where I am, knees drawn up beneath my chin.

"Garrett." Artemus' voice is soft–few within these walls speak much above a whisper. "Brother Lancion tells me you had a disagreement with Marcellus."

'Disagreement' is an understatement–I'd left the bigger novice with a swelling eye and blood dribbling from his nose–but that is Lancion's way. I once heard him refer to a Hammer Inquisitor as 'rather persistent.'

I watch Artemus warily for a moment, but when there is no outward indication that he's going to hit me (he never has, but I still keep an eye out), or even that he's particularly upset (though it's hard to tell, with Keepers), I shrug and turn my attention back to the scene out the window. The autumn rains have started, and through the rippled glass the City is little more than blurs and smears of light and shadow. It's almost beautiful.

"Physical confrontation was, perhaps, not the best solution," Artemus says, blowing out the taper. The sharp smell of burnt paper fills the air.

"Marcellus is a burrick-breathed taffer," I mutter under my breath.

"Perhaps," my mentor agrees, and though I cannot see anything of his face beyond a blurred blob reflected in the glass, I can hear a faint smile in his voice. "But Keeper Orland has expressed his dislike of...disturbances, in the scribarium."

Orland, I am fairly sure, would as soon see me back out on the streets, or possibly dancing a gallows jig. Two years since the Keepers took me in, and he has yet to waver in his dislike of me. The feeling, at least, is mutual. I shrug again, and only half-listen as Artemus begins his gentle lecture on keeping my fists to myself when I should be copying manuscripts.

And then...something shifts. For a moment, it is as though the rain-smeared view of the world outside the Compound suddenly transposed itself over my eyes. It passes, but I can no longer see quite right. There is something wrong with my left eye. I move in my window-seat, and realize that I no longer fit so well.

"You know that everything has changed." Artemus' voice seems suddenly closer, though he has not moved. I blink at the robed figure, and realize that his mouth is still shaping the words of the lecture, but that I can no longer hear the remembered words. I slip out of the window embrasure, and turn to face another Artemus standing only a couple of feet away. We are of a height, and, glancing down, I see not the child-limbs I had expected, but the thicker bones and muscle of an adult.

The twelve-year old is still in the window-seat, drawing patterns on the fogged glass and pretending to listen to his teacher. I turn back to Artemus. "What is this?"

"Memory." He shrugs, echoing my child-self's earlier gesture. "Dream. Whatever you like. Nothing can ever be the same, you know."

"I see you haven't become less cryptic in death," I remark. Part of me is hoping to provoke a reaction with this; another part of me–something more closely related to the child in the window–is hoping that Artemus will deny being dead. Talking to me in my dreams is not a talent he ever displayed in life, however.

"Death is but a door," he says. Cryptically. "Walk with me, Garrett." He turns away.

My first step lands on rain-slicked cobbles, and cold drops bite into the bare skin of my hands and arms. We're in Tercel Courtyard in South Quarter, the silent stone gargoyle staring down at us with blind eyes. I try not to look at it, though the memory of the stone claws raking across my back prods me. "Artemus–"

"You can feel it, can't you? The shifting of the tide. The pull of fate." Artemus lifts his arm, the dark sleeve of his robe falling away from a pale hand. He cups his palm to catch the falling rain. "The river flows, and the dam is broken." Water fills the hollow of his hand, spills over.

Had this encounter occurred in reality–had Artemus still been alive and seeking me out as he had done before–I might have interrupted at this point, protesting the unnecessary (and irritating) vagueness of his words, however poetic. Here, however, I don't seem to have control over my tongue, and I stay uncharacteristically silent, watching the water–which seems to have become an endless stream, pouring onto the cobbles–and waiting...but for what?

"The balance was restored," he continues. "But now it must be maintained, to allow stability. To allow everything to at last move forward in its intended path." He lifts his head, eyes glittering in the shadows of his hood. "History is written by the victors, you know. Truth is often something else entirely."

"I've noticed," I tell him dryly. "What I'm not noticing, here, is you giving me anything like a straight answer. Which is not out of the ordinary, I admit–but I was hoping for something a little better than the usual."

My old mentor smiles wryly. "This is a dream, isn't it? A memory?"

"You tell me," I growl.

"I cannot guide you anymore, Garrett," Artemus says. "The road is your own, now."

"Then why are you here, Artemus?"

"Because you needed guidance."

"You call this guidance? Really? How about telling me straight out what's really going on, then–like who carved up that Keeper, and what they're after."

"The road is your own," my old teacher insists. "I cannot give you answers you have not found. The prophet must take his place in prophecy."

I open my mouth to say something rude–and stop. I study him for a moment. "You're not really here, are you? You're not Artemus, not really, you're...part of my mind." This admission hurts more than I care to admit, and I swallow the sudden lump of pain in my throat. It settles somewhere in my chest, cold and hard.

He tips his hand, and the water empties from it. "If you like."

I don't like, but I keep this opinion to myself. After all, I was the one who set out to dredge up information from my own brain. Somewhere, sometime, I had encountered something in the Keeper histories about this 'balance.' Something that now strikes me as false, history written by the victor–and this is how my mind seeks to bring the information to the surface.

"Open your eyes," suggests Artemus.

Why had I recalled that particular day, midway through my twelfth year? The fight with Marcellus, the lecture...neither event had been of any significance. Even now, I couldn't recall why I'd hit Marcellus, or even what he looked like beyond 'bigger than me.'

Not the fight then. What had I been working on earlier, in the scribarium?

Even as the thought enters my head, I find I am no longer in the rainy courtyard. Instead, the soft smell of old leather and gently decaying paper fills my nose. I'm standing behind a boy of twelve, still undersized and scrawny for his age, bent over his work at a high desk. He is copying out a book of glyphs, brow furrowed in concentration beneath his unruly dark hair. His hand is steady, however, and I know–because the boy is me–that he is better at it than many of his fellow novices, even those that are years older. That he even manages to read–if not entirely comprehend–most of the glyphs he is transcribing.

I move closer, and lean over the boy-Garrett's shoulder to look at the book he is copying. Memory stirs. It was one of the Keeper histories, more than three hundred years old. I had secretly been a little excited to be allowed to copy it; none of the other novices in my group were good enough with the glyphs or steady enough in their calligraphy to be entrusted with such a book. I remember, too, that I was still concealing from my teachers just _how _much of the glyph-language I already knew–more than many of them would have liked or approved. It's possible Artemus knew, or at least suspected, but as in later years he trusted me even then. As I have so many times before, I wonder why this is so.

Now, in the shadows of my own memory, I read again the pages I copied so many years ago. Then I had only understood the bare bones of it, enough to recognize it as an account of a conflict between the Keepers and some other power. Enough to know that the Keepers had won. With the eyes of an adult now, and the deeper knowledge of the glyphs earned through bitter experience, I read again the account:

"_...and the Keepers did call upon the power of the Greater Glyphs, drawing down terrible storms of destruction upon the dead-speakers, and the necromancers who dared call themselves the protectors of the gates did fall and their secrets were utterly exposed. And the Keepers destroyed their strongholds and cast down their numbers, and drove the few that were left from the City to be lost in the wilderness._

"_And the Keepers alone took up the mantle of the guardians, as it had been foretold."_

I raise my eyes from the yellowed vellum pages to see Artemus standing again before me. Below us at the desk, the boy continues his work, oblivious.

"Do you see it now? The imbalance?"

"I..." I pause. "I don't know."

"You must open your eyes," Artemus insists. "You must learn to _see_, Garrett. You know what you are. You must admit it, and accept." Around us the scribarium begins to fade, and I feel myself beginning to fall.

"No, wait, _Artemus_–"

I wake up, the hard slats of wood beneath my thin mattress biting into my back. I am grasping at the empty air, trying to bring back a dead man to advise me. I can almost hear his voice through the ringing in my ears.

_You must accept it. The balance must be maintained, Keeper._

As it happens, I'm not any fonder of taking maddening orders from Keepers even when they are, presumably, my own unconscious mind disguised as a Keeper. Ignoring myself is a lot harder, however. I can't exactly get _away_, and however frustrating my little attempt to gain information from my own mind was overall, I can't claim that it was a waste of time and pretend nothing happened.

I'm sure now that asking Inspector Drept to find me information on the Guardians was the right course of action. If I've learned one thing these last few years, it's that the more something seems to be 'mythical' or 'legendary' the more likely it is to be real and about to make my life a misery. I'd seen a woman who called herself a Guardian. She'd no reason to lie: she'd been talking to a _corpse_ at the time, entirely unaware of the living thief eavesdropping.

I wish I knew what 'the balance' really means, though. It was a beloved phrase amongst the Keepers, generally providing an excuse to sit on their collective hands and do nothing. But while I may accept that I'm tied tighter to the Keepers' fate than I'd like, I doubt very much that my innermost thoughts have adopted Keeper protocol, even if they do present themselves to me in the shape of Artemus. Whatever 'the balance' is, it's a call to action, not apathy. As to what I am...well, Artemus is wrong there. I'm Garrett the master thief, and nothing more.

I don't _want _to be anything more.


	4. Chapter 4: Making the Blind to See

**Chapter Four: Making the Blind to See (Not as Hard as You Might Think)**

_Seesie all at the gates of Life_

_Seesie secrets, manfool lies_

_Seesie Death in all that liveses_

_Seesie the Path to the Woodsie Lord_

– Fragment of a Pagan Verse

While I lay in that strange dream, the night had grown old and ragged as a sick whore's smile. I emerge from my hole into air that smells of morning, and the sky to the east is growing pale over the sprawl of the City. The night is dying, but I know certain elements of the City are still hard at work–including the fence I want to see.

The weight of the swag taken from Ardeth's mansion earlier in the night is a pleasant distraction, taking my attention off things I'm not willing to admit to yet. The overall job might be an embarrassing blight on my otherwise glorious career, but at least I'll make enough from the take to eat while I chase around ghosts and mysteries.

Heartless Perry is, as fences go, fairly honest. He gives a good price for items, and is open about his abject cowardice. 'Heartless' does not refer to any kind of callous or hardened nature on his part. Only a fool would trust him with sensitive information–the man cannot keep his mouth shut–but people do tell him things of a less secretive nature, because he's an incorrigible gossip and always knows juicy bits to share in return. He might even have heard something about the Keeper's murder, now at least two nights old–and a hefty transaction is just the thing to loosen his tongue.

Despite the frost-edged chill of a mid-autumn morning, Perry is sweating when I enter his shop. This is not unusual: Heartless Perry spends every waking moment in a gently seething state of anxious worry. Builder help him if he ever gets caught and sent to the forges at Cragscleft–he'll melt away entirely in a fortnight. He gives me a nervous smile as I nudge the door shut behind me and heaves himself up out of the chair. "Garrettཀ Long time no seeཀ"

"Perry." I drop the sack of swag taken from Ardeth's manor onto the stained countertop with a heavy _clank._ Perry's single eye lights up.

"Hey, business is good, yeah?" He's tactful, at least. The take is decent, but compared to some of my jobs in the past it's pitiful. And it's been a goodly while since I last put in an appearance in his establishment at all.

"Good enough," I reply, and lean on the counter as the fence begins removing items from the bag and examining them. "For laying low," I add after a moment.

Perry grunts. "We've all been layin' low, what with the insanity goin' on out there. It took me three days to work up the guts to go outside after those taffin' statues started walkin'. You see that?"

"Some," I reply. What an understatement. I allow Perry to work in silence for a few minutes longer, then I ask, "Hear anything interesting lately?"

"Heh, you mean aside from the whole statues-coming-to-life-and-killing-people thing?"

"Aside from that, yes." I remind myself to keep any hint of irritation or impatience out of my voice; Perry spooks easily, and for once I'm not trying to intimidate information out of him.

"Coupla nobles picked up some prime pieces over the summer; I might be able to set up a job for you."

"Maybe later. I was thinking more along the lines of strange stuff."

"Strange?" Perry pauses in his examination of a heavy gold wrist cuff to squint at me in confusion.

The conversation is getting away from me. I'm not used to pumping people like Perry for information on the weird–I always had the Keepers for that, before. "Look," I say, sighing. "A couple of nights ago there was a murder in the Old Quarter. A really bloody one. You hear anything about that?"

"Oh, _that_." Heartless Perry thinks for a moment, then shrugs. "Not a lot," he admits. "Just that it was bloody, like you said. Nobody knows who they corpse was. It isn't all that weird-people bite it in that quarter all the time. Why you wanna know?"

"Curiosity."

"You?"

"I...thought it might be related to an old job."

A faintly worried expression enters Perry's single eye, and the flesh around his eyepatch creases. "You mean...whoever carved that poor taffer up might come after you?" _Or me_, he doesn't say–but he doesn't have to. His face is a poorly written book, and I learned to read it ages ago.

"No, nothing like that," I lie. "I just wanted to know if you'd heard anything. If you do," I add, allowing a harder note enter my voice, "you'd better tell me right away."

"Yeah, sure, 'course I will, Garrett," Perry reassures me hastily. He finishes sorting the loot, we negotiate an acceptable price, and he passes me a bag of coin. As I turn to go he clears his throat and says. "Don't know if this counts, Garrett..."

I pause, and look over my shoulder.

He shifts his weight, looking uneasy. "But...I think I might have heard somethin' after all."

I turn around fully, and wait, saying nothing.

A drop of sweat rolls down his cheek. "I just, I didn't think it was all that important..."

"Spit it out, Perry," I growl.

"Blind Meg...she was there when they found the body. I heard she had one of her little...funny turns. Don't know if that means anything."

It might mean nothing. But I know to my own cost that it doesn't pay to ignore what the street folk have to say about goings-on. "If you think of anything more," I tell Perry, "_anything_ at all...you know how to get a message to me."

Blind Meg lives down at the Docks. Most beggars in the City do: it's easier, generally speaking, to convince foreigners to part with their coin than most natives. Meg takes a creative approach and rather than simply begging sets herself up as a soothsayer of the extremely creepy variety. I know of her by reputation only; beggars generally operate during daylight hours.

It's a little irritating, actually, how much time I've had to spend in the sun lately; if I'm not careful, I'll end up with sunburn. Or shackle-gall. With this worry to keep me alert, I make my way through the streets to the Docks without drawing undue notice from the bulldogs. Watchmen on duty during the day aren't as alert as their graveyard-shift brethren, but they make up for it by being more numerous.

I cross Stonemarket–restraining myself magnificently from the temptations offered by that pickpocket's paradise–and slip past the ongoing repairs at the Docks Gate. Construction is pretty much perpetual in the City these days; setting aside the destruction caused on the night of the Statues' Ball, there was the collapse of the Clocktower shortly before that, not to mention the riots and the Great Fire that swept the City two years ago when Karras and his Mechanists fell–and, of course, the widespread damage caused by the Trickster's beasts when they escaped the Maw and rampaged through the City two years before _that_. Sometimes, when I'm in the mood to feel guilty, I allow myself to be reminded that I'm directly responsible for most it.

And yet, despite the chaos and destruction that have fallen upon the City–and the never-ending wars with Blackbrook–the beggars like Blind Meg survive. Also the whores and the thieves and the fences–we're a resilient lot, we criminals. Perhaps it's because we have so much more practice at survival than everyone else.

I find Blind Meg near the quay, huddled beneath a sagging awning made up of a ragged blanket and some splintered, uneven poles. She has the shapeless look all the beggars acquire when the weather begins to grow cold and they begin layering on whatever clothing they can find; greasy dark hair heavily streaked with grey lies in snarls and tangles over her shoulders. She has an unlucky traveler, probably newly disembarked from his ship, in her thrall. A bony hand holds the poor man's wrist in a grip that looks painful, but his efforts to get away are halfhearted: he's staring at her in rapt, horrified fascination as she rambles on about his "future." From where I'm standing, it doesn't sound too nice. When she starts talking about death and the pox, he drops a few coins into the bowl sitting by her left knee and darts away the instant she releases his wrist. He looks a little panicked; I can't really blame him.

As money-making strategies go, it's incredibly effective. Judging by the number of coins in the old woman's begging bowl, people give her money just so she'll shut up and let them get away from prophecies of their imminent, horrible (and graphically described) demise.

Wondering what I've just let myself in for, I sit down on the ground in front of Blind Meg and wait for her to acknowledge my presence. There's rules for dealing with the different types of beggars. I still remember most of them from my own days as a child beggar. Meg is one of those that won't talk to just anybody; she's more con-artist than panhandler, really, and she isn't interested in wasting her time on anyone who isn't a mark. If I want her to talk to me, I'll have to show her some respect first–and, eventually, the color of my money.

She takes her time, fussing with her collection of filthy shawls and scarves, squirreling away the bulk of the money in her bowl (it doesn't do for a beggar, even one like Meg, to appear _too_ successful), and generally ignoring my presence entirely. I shift into a more comfortable position on the cobblestones and wait, keeping a firm grip on my impatience. There are far, far too many people out here in the daytime...

At last Meg lifts her eyes to mine. Despite her name, Blind Meg is not actually blind. Her eyesight is at least as good as mine; better, probably, since she has two natural eyes to my one. Hers are sunk deep in her skull with years of poor food and poor living, but they're dark and beady-bright as a bird's. "So," she says, in the wheezing cackle that probably scares the heebies out of her marks, "you come before Blind Meg. What is it she sees that the great thief cannot?"

"I imagine you see much more than I, mother," I reply, keeping my tone polite and respectful. When I was a boy on the streets, I knew as well as every other urchin that it didn't pay to anger the old beggars. Their age meant they were good at survival, and with that came a ruthlessness that I respected even now, more than two decades later. "I hear," I continue, when she does not respond, "that you saw the man murdered in the Old Quarter two nights ago." I drop a silver coin into the wooden bowl at her knee. "I wonder if you would share with me what you saw."

"Men die," she says. "Some harder than others, but in the end it is the same."

The old hag is trying to run up the price. "Perhaps, but this one died particularly hard. I hear," I add, letting an edge enter my voice even as I drop another coin in the bowl, "that you saw at least some of his death. I want to know more, mother, and I'm not made of silver."

She sniffs; annoyed, probably, at my unwillingness to play her games. "I heard noises, two nights gone. From an alley. Thought it was one of the dead taffers, gotten over the barricades, come looking for a snack. But it weren't." She shudders, and naked fear shows in her eyes. I can feel tension spreading across my shoulders; beggars don't scare easily. "Was a man," she says, and all theatricality is gone from her voice. "Or something that was shaped like a man. Hooded, dressed all in blacks and greys, like a thief...but no face. Just...metal. All scratched up, like he'd been gouging at it."

Something cold tightens around my heart. "Or like it was covered in symbols?"

She shakes her head, eyes staring blindly through me at the memory. "Maybe. Didn't look well done."

No, that it wouldn't. Not like it once had, when their masks shone in the darkness with the beautiful, deadly glyphs for fear and concealment, and swift killing. "It didn't see you?" A foolish question; of course it had seen her. But whatever the Keeper Enforcer's purpose, it had not seen the need to kill one old beggar woman. Small mercies, I suppose.

"Looked right at me," Meg whispers. "Felt like my soul was draining right out of me." She makes a Pagan sign to ward away evil, and follows it up with the sign of the Builder. "And then it was just–just gone. Vanished into air."

"And your 'funny turn' when the corpse was found the next morning?"

The fear fades from her eyes and she shrugs. "Didn't hurt business none. Figured if the thing what killed that man weren't gonna do for me when I saw it, it ain't likely to come 'round later for the trouble of killing me."

The Enforcer–and his buddies, if he had them–might do just that, if they learned she'd been talking to me. No reason to tell her that, though; there was nothing I could do to prevent it if they did, and there wasn't any point in scaring the life out of her. I get to my feet. "Thanks for the information, mother." I toss another few coins–copper this time–into her bowl. "I'd lay low for awhile, if I were you," I add, prodded by some strange impulse into offering _some_ kind of warning.

She snorts. "Layin' low won't keep me fed, boy." She eyes me, her gaze settling at last on my left hand. "You better watch yourself, _pal rolko_. You're in deeper than you know."

I turn away from the old hag before my expression can give me away, but her cackle follows me. Beggars are shrewd, I remind myself. They have to be. Perhaps she recognized me for a former street urchin who left the brotherhood, or perhaps she mistook me for an undercover bull. Either reason, surely, is a perfectly legitimate explanation for why she would call me 'brother betrayer' in thieves' cant.

She has no way of knowing that, in the Keeper Prophecies, 'Brethren and betrayer' was one of the titles that, at times, referred to _me_.

I ask around a little more, but it's no surprise to discover that no one else saw anything. Even if they had, word gets around fast that I was bothering Meg for information–and now I'm not spreading enough coin around to convince anyone else to talk. I can sense the unease, however, that lies behind the stonewalling: the street folk are afraid of _something_. Perhaps it's only the aftermath of the Hag and her horrors–and all the other horrors that have stalked the City in the recent past–but I'm not willing to bet my life on it. I can feel something too, something dark and hidden–and I _would_ wager that it has everything to do with the Keepers, the broken glyph-magic and, to my dismay, _me._

Some breathing room might have been nice, but if wishes were horses...

I spend the rest of the day wandering the City, avoiding the Watch and trying to guess what my next step ought to be. I've no doubt that Drept will make good on his promise, and that he will dredge up more information than I'll know what to do with–but I still owe him at least another day to research, and there is still no guarantee any of that information will be in any way useful to me.

As the sun sinks behind the buildings (and Builder, have I been spending far too much of my time wandering around in the daylight lately) and shadows close in over the City streets, I find myself walking along the Barricade–a thick stone wall, these days–that separates the Quarantined area of the Old Quarter from the rest of the City. There are few people here; even most criminals avoid going to close to the Barricade, whatever the time of day.

It makes it much easier to pin down the individual who has been tailing me for the past hour. They're pretty good at it, in a crowd–not good enough I didn't notice, of course–but it is a great deal harder to follow someone unobtrusively on a near-empty street. I wait until a knot of laborers–on their way to the tavern after a long day, I'm sure–round a corner, then speed up to slip behind the group, putting them between me and my tail. From there, it's easy enough to duck into a narrow alley-mouth, already full of shadows. While I wait, I take the time to pull of the eyepatch (I'm wearing my daytime costume again) and ditch it and the hat. Both are easy enough to replace.

I don't have to wait long. The sound of quickening footsteps reached my ears–my pursuer, realizing suddenly that he'd lost sight of me–and a moment later my hand shoots out of the alley to close on thick, coarse wool. A strangled yelp bounces off the brickwork as I yank my quarry none-too-gently into the alley. I shift my grip to the front and pin the struggling shape–smaller than I am, and less muscular–against the grimy wall.

I recognize my pursuer from touch alone: that coarse wool belongs to the robe of a Keeper novice–and the frightened, spotted young face and the general lack of skill in remaining wholly unseen confirm this. We stand there a moment, while the boy's chest heaves in panic-shortened breath and I consider my options.

"Well?" I demand, after the silence has stretched uncomfortably.

"K-Keeper," the boy gasps, "I'm sorry, I didn't–"

I cut him off. "I'm not a Keeper. What do you want?"

The boy's forehead wrinkles in confusion. "You're–you're the One True–"

It's the work of a heartbeat to transfer my grip from the front of his robes to his throat. I don't squeeze (well, I don't squeeze _hard_) but the kid breaks off with a squeak. "You finish that sentence," I tell him, keeping my tone conversational, "and you'll regret it. What. Do. You. Want."

I feel his throat bob nervously under my palm as he swallows. "Your help," he whispers at last.

The song, at least, hasn't changed. I let my grip on the boy's throat relax a little. "The Keepers are done, kid. Finished, gone, over with. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can get the hell out of my life."

"We're not finished," the boy insists. "And–and you _have_ to help. You always have before."

I hate the truth. It's damned difficult to argue with, especially when it's thrown out there, naked and unavoidable, like a drunk lord fleeing his mistress's bedchamber when her husband comes home. "Listen, you–" I break off as every hair on my arms and on the back of my neck suddenly stands straight up.

_**::Find the boy. He must be silenced.**__::_

Hell. Swearing under my breath, I let go of the boy's throat and grab him once more by the robe. "_Run._"

"Wha–?"

Of course he argues. "Run, damn you, and _hide._ Your life depends on it." I shove him, hard. "_Move._"

Thank all the gods of idiots, he actually listens. Or, possibly, his survival instinct finally staggers to its feet and realizes there's predators of the worst sort coming. Whatever the case, he pales and, without another word, bolts. Within moments, he's vanished–his skills seem to have improved in direct relation to his actual danger. That's some relief, I suppose.

I don't know how it is that I can hear the Keeper Enforcers. It startled the hell out of me the first time I heard their mind-to-mind communication, when they were hunting me just a few weeks ago. I didn't question it at the time–it saved my life–and I don't question it now. I can hear them, and they don't know it.

The brick walls that form the alley are crumbling and rough; I scramble up them, feeling gritty mortar and clay beneath my palms, keenly aware that my armor and most of my weapons are miles away in my hideout. It's not my most graceful or silent ascent ever–but it isn't supposed to be. I want the Enforcers' attention on _me_, gods help me, not the kid. I hook my fingers into the lead gutter at the top of the wall, pray it won't pull away from its fastenings, and haul myself up.

And come face to face with an Enforcer.

My luck being what it is, I half expected this. The Enforcer, on the other hand, clearly wasn't, and freezes like a novice thief come face-to-face with an angry guard. Without slowing my momentum, I reach out and hook one hand into the front of the thing's armor–like mine, it involves quite a lot of straps–and haul backwards. The Enforcer doesn't make a sound–they can't speak, or even cry out, so far as I can tell–as it tumbles off the edge of the wall and, ricocheting off the opposite wall of the alley, hits the ground below hard. On the rooftops nearby, I can see flickers of movement as the other Enforcers notice the struggle and its abrupt end.

I'm not big on killing, but in the Enforcers' case–well, I'm not going to be as careful as I usually would be, and I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. Taking out one of their buddies also means I now have the rest of the pack's undivided attention.

I don't like Enforcers.

The feeling is mutual.

**::**_**The Betrayer! Kill him!::**_ The cry echoes in my mind, setting up a dull throb behind my eyeballs as the hatred in it washes over me. I don't waste any more time. The Thieves' Highway in the Old Quarter is the easiest to get over, because the buildings in this part of the City are crammed so closely together. My breath is loud in my ears as I race across the rooftops. It's still too light; the Enforcers cannot blend so easily into the shadows at this time of day, but neither can I. For now, it's going to be a flat-out race. My one consolation is that the glyph-magic that once lent the Enforcers their preternatural speed and agility is gone.

It isn't _much _consolation; full dark is still too far off for my convenience, and I can only run so long before my age–and old injuries–slow me down enough for them to catch me. I'm not keen on the idea of a toe-to-toe fight with even one Enforcer, let alone an entire pack. A fighter I am not; I've survived for thirty-four years by quick wits, a near-supernatural ability to fade into shadows, and an encyclopedic knowledge of incredibly dirty tricks. Most of those tricks, unfortunately, require the use of equipment–equipment that is, like my armor, currently not in the same location as me. If things keep going as they are, my immediate future is going to involve very messy, protracted, and agonizing death. Mine, unfortunately.

My luck runs out faster than I'd like. (It always does.) The chase takes us perilously close to the Barricade Wall, that dubious protection the City relies upon to keep the zombies from embarking on an all-you-can-eat banquet. I notice that the Enforcers don't seem to want to get too close to it. I'm not terribly keen on the idea myself, but frankly I'll take zombies over this bunch any day; the zombies don't run as fast. Hoping I'm not signing myself up as this evening's main course, I feint a dodge at an Enforcer that has popped up in front of me, then jump across the gap between a sagging roof and the top of the Barricade Wall. The Enforcer nearest me does not follow, and I feel a brief surge of triumph. I won't be able to move as quickly–the Barricade isn't in the best condition, and the stones are treacherous on top–but if the enemy won't follow me, I can afford to be a little leisurely.

I really should know better.

_**::Shoot him. Our other quarry escapes.::**_

Once again, my own arrogance comes around to bite me in the ass. I forget that, while the Enforcers prefer an up-close kill, they also carry ranged weapons in the form of nasty little crossbows that nevertheless pack a lethal punch. On the roof across from me, I see the Enforcer pull the weapon from his belt and raise it.

I know it's coming–and I know there is no way out. I try to dodge anyway, to jump down the other side of the Barricade, in the hope that the shot won't be immediately fatal or that it might miss me altogether. The _click_ seems unnaturally loud in my ears, and a heartbeat later I know I haven't moved fast enough. Agony erupts in my upper chest as the crossbow bolt tears through cloth, skin, and muscle, finally scraping on bone. The force of it–greater than an arrow fired from a bow–spins me around and I feel my boot soles slip on the crumbling stones of the Barricade.

I fall.


End file.
